TECHNOSERVE, through the Agro Initiative Zimbabwe, has channelled close to $1 million to small and medium enterprises and boost output.
BUSINESS REPORTER
TechnoServe is an international non-profit that promotes business solutions to poverty in the developing world by linking people to information, capital and markets.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Agro Initiative Zimbabwe 2014 awards, TechnoServe country director Luke Potter said the company works with enterprising people in the developing world to build competitive farms, businesses and industries.
“We have helped 21 businesses and have given them up to $50 000 so that we buy down the risk by offering financial support. We provide business solutions to poverty by linking people to information capital and markets, driven by an underlying belief that often people struggle because they lack the knowledge skills and tools needed to lift themselves out of poverty,” he said.
Potter said 22 000 people had been impacted upon by the initiative.
Small and Medium Enterprise and Cooperative Development minister Sithembiso Nyoni said government partnership with Technoserve shows its commitment to create opportunities and income to the poor, small-scale farmers and the poor in rural communities.
“In an environment where liquidity is constrained, we see Agro Initiative Zimbabwe as a vehicle to offer our SMEs’ an opportunity to pilot new ideas which could potentially transform small medium sized businesses and the agriculture sector as a whole,” Nyoni said.
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Agro Initiative Zimbabwe is sponsored by the UK Department for International Development, Delta Corporation, Irish Aid, Deloitte Touche, Price WaterhouseCoopers and Ernst and Young.
